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Mercury – Banking built for startups

mercury.co

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Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#41

Post by craigsmansion »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #34
craigsmansion wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you sell Haskell? Once Haskell was decided on, how did you approach development?

We were a team of 3, with the CEO and myself technical, so ultimately it came down to just co-founder trust. Immad was somewhat skeptical, but after interviewing some amazing candidates who wanted to work for us to use Haskell, he's really liked it. Development was pretty simple, I just created a yesod-postgres template and we got started with authentication. Are you asking about something specific?

Thanks for your reply. My question wasn't specific, more of a general approach, like how to find people and how to get started with development, etc.

So a small team with technically capable people with I guess little outside interference, that makes sense. I guess I was hoping for a good approach on how to make Haskell/ML/ palatable to decision people who aren't all that technically inclined.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#42

Post by j-zhang »

typo_hunter wrote: post #38
MaxGabriel wrote: post #12

I'm a co-founder and CTO at Mercury. We have some amazing frontend UI (the onboarding flow especially) if you'd like to check it out, and our backend is 100% Haskell. AMA

Beautiful UI, really well-done! What was the toughest decision made in the process of crafting the UX?

Jumping in for Max here. It was actually pretty tough for us to figure out how to name ACH as a payment method. One of our goals going into Mercury was to stay away from acronyms or confusing bank terminology as much as possible. Most banks hide ACH behind "bill pay" or use nonstandard terms like "electronic check" or "e-transfer" which are also confusing and don't describe the payment method clearly. We wanted to expose ACH directly but couldn't figure out how to get across what it was without confusing users further. Hours of debate in the office ensued.

Eventually we decided to just stick with the acronym after finding out pretty much everyone we talked to knew what ACH is.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#43

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

immad wrote: post #16
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, do you have the API docs? I'd like something for scriptable money transfers.

Not yet. If you drop me an email I can send you an update when we do. Also let me know what your specific use case is.

We were building a Bitcoin integration for person-to-person and one of our core use cases was allowing people to log in using their banking credentials for ACH transfers, but the issue wasn't charging them, but having us take our share, and transferring between accounts.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#44

Post by jsperx »

Looks very cool. What is the preferred way to deposit checks? I see it mentioned on the FAQ as “add new funds” flow, but I’m thinking more like payment for invoices from old-school customers.

Do you support an RDC scanner, or would it be recommended to use a traditional bank and then electronically transfer it in from them, or wait for a mobile app?

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#46

Post by immad »

yingw787 wrote: post #37
immad wrote: post #5

I am co-founder, CEO of Mercury. Excited to see this on HN. Happy to answer any questions. We set out wanting to: a) deliver an amazing online banking experience for startups b) help entrepreneurs understand their revenues/costs better and succeed c) deliver great financial services. We have a long way to go but are excited to unveil what we have achieved so far. Mercury will provide your startup a FDIC-insured check…

Congratulations on the launch! - Are the analytics pipeable via API/sockets, or are they planned to be behind the GUI? Are you curating a plugins ecosystem with Stripe/Gusto/etc. or can anybody use the API as long as you have keys/secrets? - How do you plan on handling customer support? I use Schwab /AmEx and I love it b/c you can get a representative on the line in less than two rings. I am always concerned of somet…

- Analytics: Good question. Currently we are planning to do just our GUI. But not closed to the idea of having an API for it.

- API: anyone will have access to it.

- Support: We have a number and we do Intercom chat. It's mostly manned during US business hours right now.

- Tea: We are probably going to go for surprising you and not reveal the tea we send :)

Thanks!

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#47

Post by immad »

jsperx wrote: post #44

Looks very cool. What is the preferred way to deposit checks? I see it mentioned on the FAQ as “add new funds” flow, but I’m thinking more like payment for invoices from old-school customers. Do you support an RDC scanner, or would it be recommended to use a traditional bank and then electronically transfer it in from them, or wait for a mobile app?

If you have a ton of checks (>10/month) we are probably not the best solution at the moment.

We are going to have web based check deposit going live next week and mobile in the near term.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#48

Post by legionof7 »

manigandham wrote: post #32

Congrats on the launch. We're with SVB but tired of their crappy ancient tech stack and want a bank with a decent API. Mobile apps with check deposits and xero/intuit integration would be high priority features before a move.

I've never used startup banking before, curious what kinda thing people look to do with banking API.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#49

Post by immad »

manigandham wrote: post #32

Congrats on the launch. We're with SVB but tired of their crappy ancient tech stack and want a bank with a decent API. Mobile apps with check deposits and xero/intuit integration would be high priority features before a move.

Mobile Apps: iOS or Android or both? Any particular feature you are looking.

Xero/Intuit: Which one do you use or do you need both?

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#50

Post by immad »

ulzeraj wrote: post #40

Sadly it seems to be an US only or US centric type of service and I understand that it is as it should be since baking accounts and borders are complicated matter. Here in Brazil here have Nubank which offers lots of modern features like APIs and so but they do not offer services for business so we have to rely on old crusty bureaucratic evil banks.

Sorry! I hear Nubank is great though.
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